Petter Lorre is Hans Beckert, an elusive, anti-social young man who is a pedophile. Much beyond that, he also kills his victims, and this act causes such an uproar in the streets of the unnamed German city that police begin raiding bars to find him. Eventually he is found, but many great sequences lead up to this revelation.
First is the opening sequence, a simple yet powerfully done sequence in which children are shown playing, and then the faceless Beckert strides up and offers to buy a young girl a balloon, all the while whistling Edvard Grieg's Hall of the Mountain King. No gratuitous acts against the young girl are shown; instead, we simply get a shot of a balloon stuck in wires, and a ball rolling to a stop in the grass.
The movie descends into much of the first half as a standard police procedural, as the cops try desperately to find who this pervert is, working hours of overtime and getting 90% false leads. A unique spin comes from the German Underworld, who are getting so fed up by the constant police raids that they decide they must find Beckert themselves and end this once and for all.
M to me really speaks to German cinema in the early years of film, and solidifies my belief that they were they best filmmakers of the day. Robert Wiene helped define German Expressionism with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), and F.W. Murnau (Nosferatu, Sunrise) and G.W. Pabst (Pandora's Box) have turned out the greatest works from those early days. Not to mention Erich von Stroheim (Greed). And Fritz Lang essentially invented the science fiction genre with Metropolis (1927), another film I'd love to revisit because it has been so many years.
It is then sad that Adolf Hitler not only led the greatest genocide in history, but also destroyed the German filmmaking industry for Leni Riefenstahl's propaganda films. Fritz Lang had to leave his native Germany and went to America, and never directed anything notable ever again. But here is a film full of invention, tackling a subject that will always be grisly and unpleasant.
Two other remarkable scenes include: a scene where Beckert, driven mad by his desire to kill children, finds another suspect and whistles merrily the Mountain King. He is recognized by a blind man, and is marked by a young man with an M on his shirt. This shot, as Beckert turns and realizes what is on his coat, is one of the definitive shots in movie history. The realization that dawns on Lorre's wide eyes speak volumes about the danger he knows he is in.
Finally, the last scene in the film is altogether another remarkable piece of virtuoso filmmaking. Captured by the German Underworld, Beckert is put on trial in front of not just mobsters but many citizens from Germany up above. One man is assigned to Beckert's defense, and two powerful speeches are delivered: the first comes from Beckert. Writhing on the ground, he screams that the urge to commit this horrible acts is something he can't control. Here, Peter Lorre lets loose with the character and screams for mercy, because he really is insane, he really can't control the urges.
The second speech comes from his "lawyer" who states that, yes, this man has committed these awful crimes, and that he should be left to the police, not killed by the mob of angry people standing at this mock trial. A strange thing happens during these two speeches: you actually feel sorry for the pathetic little man, writhing on the floor. Not empathy, for anyone who does may need to be checked out themselves, but a small grain of sympathy is shed for this unworthy man.
In America and indeed maybe most other places in the world in the 30s, you wouldn't find a movie that explored such dark and resonant themes as these. I love classic Hollywood pictures, but something has to be said for the mundanity of most of their plots. You see where they are all going, its just how are they going to get there. But in Germany particularly, anti-heroes and antagonists were getting plenty of attention, and it is a shame that Hitler rose to power, because of the War and genocide, and also the destruction of many more potentially great films.
Footnote: The movie ends by stating that the current version of the film, which runs 110 minutes, is still an incomplete form of the movie. Like with so many other pictures in that day, scenes were edited out and that footage was lost. Still, the edition that exists in lovely Criterion transfers is well worth the watch.
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